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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29685249">For Every Eternity</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Macabre_Grey/pseuds/Miss_Macabre_Grey'>Miss_Macabre_Grey</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Yu-Gi-Oh! VRAINS</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Hugsaku 2021, M/M, but it fits and I love the Hugsaku event, though I did technically write this before I knew the event</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-02-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 01:33:56</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,437</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29685249</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Miss_Macabre_Grey/pseuds/Miss_Macabre_Grey</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryoken planned to have another birthday come and go without Yusaku. Then Yusaku came back from his search, and what they want conflict with what they deserve.</p>
<p>They never got to be kids, so why start now?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Fujiki Yuusaku/Revolver | Kougami Ryouken</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>For Every Eternity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Always so weird rating things as “G” because I associate it subconsciously with things like fluff and cute things. This story, in my opinion, is neither. It’s soft, yes, and nothing bad happens, but it still feels like this is an 18+20yo shippy story means for adults to feel better about life by experience true growth. Anyway! Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“Thank you for showing,” said with absolutely no warmth or gratitude in his voice, Ryoken only nodded at Yusaku’s direction before looking back at Stardust Road.</p>
<p>Yusaku never needed Ryoken’s gratitude, so he settled for sparing his companion only a quick glance before casting his gaze to the same horizon. For this view, for this sense of peace, for Ryoken, Yusaku always made time, even if he mostly did so in a subconscious effort. Yusaku appreciated that they were not looking at each other, as he struggled to get words out, mouth opening and closing like a fish. After clearing his throat, Yusaku managed to get out a sentence, possibly a minute after relevancy to what little conversation they had.</p>
<p>“It’s your birthday, so don’t thank me for showing.” Yusaku kept his voice neutral, no scolding nor judgment but also no celebration nor excitement. Any tone at all would have revealed too many of his unsaid words.</p>
<p>Ryoken sighed that sounded closer to a scoff, though seemingly not pointed at Yusaku. “Spectre told you,” he concluded, and Yusaku could see his eyebrows knit in a way that betrayed his uncaring tone. Ryoken took in a breath then glanced at Yusaku. “There’s no reason to claim my birthday as a reason to show up. I didn’t think you cared about them. Do you even know how old I’m turning?”</p>
<p>For the first time that night, Ryoken looked at him, making eye contact too fierce to break away. Yusaku took that moment to study Ryoken’s face, truly marvel at the person sharing the view with him, and Yusaku realized he never considered how young Ryoken was. To some degree Yusaku saw Ryoken as both an equal rival and a partner, but he also held Ryoken to an unspoken standard of maturity and poise and power. That impression lasted on Yusaku and Ryoken their entire time knowing each other. Yusaku had no way to disprove that assumption when they only met in such disconnected circumstances as their youthful and free spirited past selves or their severe and serious avatars.</p>
<p>Yusaku’s foremost impression of Ryoken remains that he is a disembodied voice of hope. Even if the voice that saved his life was that of a child’s, Ryoken’s current voice was deep and rich and commanding. A true leader’s voice, one Yusaku first heard two years ago attached to a mere digital persona that Yusaku never linked to Ryoken himself as a person. Which led to Yusaku realizing his second impression of Ryoken linked itself to Link VRAINS. Even if Yusaku understood entirely well an avatar is not the person, he still associated with the man before him mostly to handle jobs online.</p>
<p>And to call Ryoken the man before him seemed foreign. He was barely so, never having grown much taller in Yusaku’s time away, nor getting much more muscular. If Yusaku pushed his memory, Ryoken never chose to change his appearance much in the way of hairstyle or how he dressed. Yusaku knew to some degree that Ryoken was an adult because Yusaku heavily researched his father two years ago when he first bombarded the Kogami Manor two years ago with Kusanagi and Ai. And if the former Leader of the Knights of Hanoi had been 18 two years ago then Yusaku resolved his mouth to give an answer.</p>
<p>“Twenty.”</p>
<p>Without Yusaku noticing that they both started leaning closer to each other, Ryoken suddenly backed away, posture straight and clean once more. A small smile appeared on Ryoken’s face as he averted his gaze. “A good guess. I thought you would say 21, though you normally think faster than that, ‘Playmaker’.”</p>
<p>Yusaku allowed himself the satisfaction of rolling his eyes at Ryoken. “Your question took me by surprise, is all. Am I to assume you readily know my ag-“</p>
<p>“Eighteen.” Ryoken cut him off, more by his intense stare by his reply itself. In truth, Ryoken reached the answer faster than Yusaku himself would have reached it. “You’re the same age I was when we met.”</p>
<p>Yusaku considered it less of a “meeting” and more of a “reunion,” but he knew better than to voice that thought. “Feels . . . strange. When you word it like that. You felt so out of reach back. Even now. Back then and now you had the weight of the world on you. But all I’m doing at my age is finishing my last year of Den High. And you’re . . .”</p>
<p>“Before this ocean, with you, right now, I am only ‘Ryoken’.” Ryoken reached for one of Yusaku’s hands, not that he did anything with it besides letting the tips of their fingers touch. “If you think I was unreachable then, you really were a kid. Looking back on how I was at 18, I feel so ashamed. Brash and reckless and naive and arrogant. I was such a child.”</p>
<p>“And the two year difference changes that how?” Yusaku asked, his tone genuine instead of teasing. If someone like Ryoken would consider his not-distant-past-self a child, Yusaku wanted to understand.</p>
<p>Ryoken sighed again with an expression Yusaku never saw before. “For starters you’ve been the difference. You’ve also . . . been gone. You were gone for quite some time. I turned 19 without you by my side, and I still feel like I became an entirely new person from ever having met you at all.”</p>
<p>“Meeting me or meeting Playmaker?” Yusaku hated that the question left his lips at all. He himself saw Playmaker as a tool alone, but a tool so intertwined with who he was as Yusaku, distinguishing them barely mattered for something like this.</p>
<p>“I think,” Ryoken started as he took in a breath, “Playmaker started the change in me, for the better, but Yusaku is the one I can’t have disappear on me again. A lifetime passed waiting for you.”</p>
<p>“I didn’t . . . I don’t . . .” In Yusaku’s pause, Ryoken moved closer to Yusaku on the bench, enough to clasp the fingers he barely grazed before while also leaving a sizable gap. “I came back to you. I didn’t know I missed anything when I left but. I’m back.”</p>
<p>“You came back, months later, but no wiser or better than how you were before. While you were gone, I had to-to,” Ryoken, cool, suave, composed Ryoken, never lost himself in his words, but he visibly struggled to speak. Whatever word he wanted, Ryoken replaced with a roll of his hand. “But I didn’t,” Ryoken finished softly instead of saying what he started. “I didn’t move on. All I did was believe you’d return, and I . . . missed you.”</p>
<p>Yusaku felt on the tip of his tongue words he did not mean. He could almost say it, “I missed you, too,” but Ryoken never crossed his mind, not <i>really</i> when he was on his search. Much like how he focused on nothing but revenge for ten years, all those months became about finding Ai. All that time had been not for himself, but for a mission. All his <i>life</i> felt like a mission. “I don’t think I grew up. In that time away, in my years for revenge, in my months in the experience that. I don’t . . . know how to miss things. Or people. I made a goal and you . . . were no longer my goal.”</p>
<p>Yusaku felt pain from how Ryoken held his hand, but instead of complaining, all Yusaku could do was squeeze Ryoken’s hand back, not nearly as forceful, but enough to make Ryoken feel his touch back. Ryoken turned to him with no longer a piercing gaze, but one of understanding and disappointment. They sat there. Together. Conversation paused as they both dealt with a surge of emotions that neither expected to surface.</p>
<p>Yusaku took in a deep breath and shifted closer to Ryoken. “You are more than a goal, at least now.” Ryoken widened his eyes, just enough to notice because Yusaku had been studying him the entire night. “When we met - reunited - but as foes, I cemented my life to the idea of you being in it. I stopped seeing you as a goal, to meet again, to save, to know, to challenge, and classified you as an inevitability. You were the future no matter what. I never missed you because I always felt like I had you, like you were in my life forever, and that’s all I wanted, could want, or still want and . . . I left you.”</p>
<p>Before Yusaku could turn away and lower his head, Ryoken’s spare hand moved under his chin to lift his face so their gaze met. “You came back. I knew you would. Trusted you enough to hope you would. An inevitability I felt just the same as you. Logically, I knew I needed to wait. But in the time I hated you - more than I hated you as the enemy to Revolver. I hated that you left. Hated myself for caring nearly just as much as I despised you.”</p>
<p>“Thank you for hating me. Something about that means we’re once again far too similar.” Yusaku took his own hand and cupped Ryoken’s cheek, running his thumb along skin that showed no blemishes or bruising or wrinkles. Ryoken had the face of someone truly young, with eyes that continued to baffle Yusaku with their intense wisdom and burdens. “You’re so different and exactly the same as you’ve always been to me. You may think you changed, that time has passed and you’re no longer the same 18-year-old who waged a war over me, you may not think you’re the same 8-year-old who helped me pick up my duel monster cards from the street, but you are. You’ve been eternally mine.”</p>
<p>Yusaku saw a spark, a shine, in Ryoken’s eyes as he widened them just a fraction before Ryoken shut them and sighed. Losing access to those eyes changed Ryoken’s presence. Without being able to see the iciness in the blue irises, Ryoken finally looked approachable. “I’m different,” Ryoken insisted, eyes still closed and expression hard to read. Yusaku kept his hand on Ryoken’s face, then pried it away with his fingertips still warm from the touch. “We don’t know each other. Not enough for such bold claims.”</p>
<p>Yusaku should have expected such a reaction. “I know you know me, at the least. You know I’m yours, even if you deny the reverse.” Talking to Ryoken about personal things and feelings took a toll on Yusaku. Having to find the right words to convey his thoughts and emotions in a way other people could understand continued to be the hardest thing Yusaku has ever done. Yet he continued because, to Yusaku, Ryoken was worth it to talk. “I know I’m yours.”</p>
<p>Ryoken opened his eyes halfway. “Why?”</p>
<p>Yusaku wondered if his cheeks could still smile. The innocence, a childlike wonder, in the single-word question brought a sense of ease in Yusaku only Ryoken seemed to bring. Ryoken, who all too often demanded and chided for information, asking a question with a gentle hope in his voice helped reinforce the idea that Ryoken was still a young adult who needed confirmation and companionship. The surprise relaxed Yusaku that Ryoken could be so soft, vulnerable.</p>
<p>“Because I care about you,” Yusaku answered with the intent to make it sound obvious, that of <i>course</i> he cared, but even he could admit the words sounded unexpected coming from him. “Sometimes I feel like I miss you, even though you’re right beside me. I couldn’t <i>let</i> myself miss you when I left, but right here, now, I do.”</p>
<p>Ryoken seized instantly. His brows furrowed and his lips turned. A stark contrast to the serenity from before. “Consider it punishment for leaving without a trace or correspondence.”</p>
<p>“Do you hate me?” Yusaku cut in, heart suddenly frozen at the full weight that when Ryoken used the past tense for his hatred for Yusaku, that perhaps Ryoken still held onto the resentment. “Do you still hate me even now?”</p>
<p>Ryoken kept his expression harsh. “Do you regret leaving?”</p>
<p>Yusaku sucked in a breath and bit his lip. Looking for Ai cost him months with his comrades and companions, some of whom he could have started getting close enough to to become friends had he stayed. Looking aimlessly cost memories not being made and precious moments never to be had. So many cons weighed him down from that one panicked choice, but Yusaku could not say it was only a failure. “I don’t,” Yusaku confessed, heart heavy at the confession. “Now I know I can keep looking to the future. Going away then meant I would leave no stone unturned, ensure not one strand of a loose end would go unnoticed. And now I . . . My future finally has a semblance of hope, that my past won’t suddenly come back to drag me down.”</p>
<p>Ryoken rest his head on Yusaku’s shoulder and sighed. The touch felt foreign and inexplicable, a weight Yusaku never had to carry. “Then I don’t hate you.” Somehow the words did little to soothe Yusaku’s heart. “Are you sorry for leaving?”</p>
<p>Yusaku could answer with much more ease since his answer resembled the previous one. “I have things I should have done better to be apologetic about, but . . . No, I’m not sorry for the same reason I don’t regret it.” Yusaku smiled, or he assumed he did, and tentatively placed a hand in Ryoken’s hair. “I’m grateful I have closure, and that I learned not to leave again. I can’t leave you, and I don’t want to. If anything, I’m thankful that I made those discoveries about coming back to find people precious to me.”</p>
<p>Yusaku hated their position because he had no idea what Ryoken looked like, but he appreciated the softness of Ryoken’s hair and the fact that if Ryoken was mad, he could have swatted Yusaku away. “I came here tonight ready to start my future,” Yusaku barely caught the words. Ryoken’s deep voice put a small vibration on Yusaku’s shoulder. “Becoming a true legal adult, I prepared myself for tonight as the last night I could partake in any childish fantasies, any link from childhood that held me back, I would abandon.”</p>
<p>Yusaku kept his hand in Ryoken’s hair, but never curled his fingers through it or toyed with the white and purple locks. On an instinct Yusaku did not understand, he started to stroke his fingers against Ryoken’s head in an effort to calm his companion down. “I’m here now. Why do I think you treat me like a fantasy, Ryoken?” The name felt tender from Yusaku’s lips despite his word being pointed. Yusaku wanted to repeat the name often for the rest of his life, but he needed Ryoken to say he wanted that, too. “I’m ready, Ryoken, to pave a path forward with you. To make reality ours, together.”</p>
<p>“A childish fantasy. Can’t you see that’s all that is?” Ryoken kept his voice resigned, and made no moment to change their positions. “You’re a dream. An avatar online I battled the <i>world</i> over, and a <i>child</i> I played with twelve years ago. And now, you’re someone I need to let go of. I grew and started a new path because of you, for that I am grateful, but if you can leave to find closure, then I know I must, as well.”</p>
<p>Ryoken clenched his fist and buried his face deeper into the crook of Yusaku’s neck. The Incident ruined most of Yusaku’s ticklishness or sensitivity, but even he felt a shiver go up his spine at Ryoken’s touch. The arm farther from Yusaku wrapped around Yusaku’s waist. The pressure resembled constraints, and panic often found Yusaku whenever he felt trapped, but the lightness of the pressure inspired comfort and security instead. Ryoken sighed, his breath making the hair on Yusaku’s neck rise. “You waited for me by your own choice, Ryoken. The same as I waited and sought for you by my own choice. We don’t owe each other anything.” Yusaku wrapped a hand around Ryoken’s side, pushing Ryoken a small inch closer. “But I know I waited because I wanted you. Why was it you waited for me?”</p>
<p>Ryoken buried himself even more against Yusaku and took in the scent. Whatever vague musk of Yusaku hid beneath the salty breeze of the ocean. “I really hated you. You’re supposed to be a childish fantasy. Even still.” Ryoken lifted his face away from Yusaku to be able to look at him directly. “I want you. I don’t want to let you, the most innocent and cherished part of my childhood, go. I want to be the person who helped you pick cards off the sidewalk or the person who tends to your wounds after a battle.” </p>
<p>“We can’t be exactly like that. We were robbed that. I’ve come to terms with that long ago,” Yusaku spoke softly but firmly and he reached his hand out to capture a bit of the hair framing Ryoken’s face. “I would like to aspire to that though. To become childish and carefree bit by bit with I grow old with you.”</p>
<p>Sitting across the ocean, they both realized they had not been able to act their age for over a decade. During that time, they noticed their childhood decay, hated that reality, and resigned themselves to needing to grow up too fast. They realized it in the comfort of each other’s company, how seldom they got to be teenagers.</p>
<p>Ryoken smiled with an unseen light in his eyes. A kindness and hopefulness in the icy blue that warmed Yusaku to see them. “I’m not going to wait anymore for you then.”</p>
<p>Ryoken said nothing else before leaning down to capture Yusaku’s lips. In all reality Yusaku should have seen it coming, but it knocked his breath out all the same. Against both of their wills, they shut their eyes and let the moment sink in. The tension of over a decades worth of memories melted, if only for the single moment their lips touched. They wanted to see each other, soak in ever detail of the other’s face, but could not. With their eyes closed, they got to trick themselves into eternity together, that they could be any age, any avatar or appearance, any time. Their kiss felt weightless against the heaviness of their emotions.</p>
<p>“I don’t owe you anything. You said so yourself, right?” Ryoken said the moment he managed to pull away from Yusaku.</p>
<p>“And I owe you nothing,” Yusaku agreed with a rare smirk forming on his lips. “Everything we do for or to each other is freely given. I give myself to you, Ryoken.”</p>
<p>Ryoken stole another kiss and wrapped his arms loosely around Yusaku’s waist. “I’ll have you. And, though unorthodox for the person who’s birthday it is, I want to give you myself as well.”</p>
<p>In a bold move unlike Yusaku, he leaned in to kiss Ryoken’s cheek, enjoying the feeling of the soft skin against his lips. “Thank you. I’ll keep you. I won’t leave, and . . . I . . .“ the words were on the tip of his tongue, if Yusaku could bring himself to just say them, he knew they would ring true. Yusaku hated himself in that moment for feeling more tongue-tied than he had all night when the mood finally felt right for his confession. Unlike some other words that had been him dancing around subjects, trying to probe for answers, or otherwise stalling, Yusaku had something he truly came out that night to say. But like many emotionally traumatized teens, his mouth refused to admit the words.</p>
<p>Yusaku wanted to say the words; they would be the entire and eternal truth.</p>
<p>“It’s okay, Yusaku. I can hear them already,” Ryoken said with enough certainty that Yusaku could believe him. “We lost our childhood, but even now we’re still young. You don’t have to say it yet. I can’t say those obvious words yet either. But. I do feel them for you. This entire time, since way back then.”</p>
<p>Yusaku sighed and untensed his shoulders in relief. They were still young. They could figure the rest of the words out. They stayed by the water until past midnight, after Ryoken’s birthday ended and Yusaku has no social contract to stay. For hours, they enjoyed each other in a newfound wordless company while they forge a new memory akin to many of their others. A beautiful moment by Stardust Road like so many in their past as a way to dedicate their futures. No more banter or discussion or conversation, they spent their time listening to the ocean waves greeting the shore.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I hope you all feel like they’ll finally get a happy ending. This isn’t it, not yet, but they’ll start on it now. Better late than never, right?</p>
<p>I wrote this beginning at work when I had a spare 15 minutes to use one of the, in my heart, more powerful lines of this story, and it was over for me from there. I knew I had to write this whole fic after that. Annnnnd please, if you enjoyed, let me know. Comments are so incredible.</p>
<p>Love,<br/>Grey</p></blockquote></div></div>
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